I've spent a couple of relaxing days, sitting around the pool (after I fished out the ceremonial teabag, dumped in there by my neighbors, to commemorate Independence Day). Now it’s back to work with a vengeance.

This morning, I’m at the Old Bridge Public Library (1 Old Bridge Plaza, Municipal Center, Old Bridge, NJ 08857), for the regular GSSW meeting, followed by guest speaker Keith DeCandido, who’ll give a talk on Outline and Synopsis Training.

As soon as that’s done, I’m off to Bridgewater Public Library (1 Vogt Drive, Bridgewater, NJ), for a New Jersey Authors’ Networkpanel/Q&A, ‘I’ve finished my first draft, now what?’, with fellow members, Anthony Giordano; Kit Grindstaff; Bill Patterson, and Sharon Trembley. The panel kicks off at 2pm.

Tomorrow afternoon (July 7th, 2pm -4pm), I’ll be in beautiful Belmar, along with Christy Sloat, Katherine Polillo and Poonam (P. A.) Chawla, for the first in a series of Meet the Author events sponsored by Belmar Township and The Paperback Exchange Bookstore, run by the lovely Shari Sanford. These events will take place every Sunday afternoon throughout July and August, so keep an eye on The Paperback Exchange’s event page for details of authors appearing on the coming week’s schedule.

Getting rid of a lot of books, yes. We have a slight book problem - to the point of there being duplicate copies of some (hey, at the library book sale if you can't remember if you have a copy, it's all "oh, it's cheap, and it benefits the library..." So probably 200-300 paperbacks will be finding their way to friends, released to BookCrossing, or being dumped back in the library bin (though I should mark them some way so I don't re-buy them...).

I'm also kinda alphabetizing them, which is a horridly painstaking process. But the other option is laundry or vacuuming, so...

You obviously have a busy weekend ahead. Mine is more relaxed... at least, it will be after tonight when we're hosting a steak barbecue here for 60 people from our church. Fortunately others have formed a committee to do most of the food-related part of things. We just have to provide the facilities. Today will be spent hunting down wayward weeds in the gardens. Tomorrow will be spent recuperating. Have a good one, Jon.